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OTTAWA - The political line in the sand -- the one that will divide Liberals and Conservatives in the next election -- was clearly drawn with Stephane Dion's first question as Official Opposition leader. It was not so much that Mr. Dion wanted to know why Prime Minister Stephen Harper had closed a dozen Status of Women offices, but the way he punctuated his question: "Is it not to cripple those who dare challenge his neo-conservative ideology?" That theme -- the Liberals as compassionate, caring centrists vs. cold-hearted, hard-nosed Conservatives -- threaded itself through the Liberal attacks during Monday's Question...

Tory spies at the convention were handing out campaign buttons on Thursday night: one reads "Go for Bob -- Go for Broke" and another shows a graph, an arrow heading south and the line, "Bob Rae -- a New Direction for Canada." Another advises: "Who needs Ontario anyway? Vote Bob." This suggests: (a) the Conservatives would like Michael Ignatieff to win this thing; (b) they won't be heartbroken if he doesn't, because the plans to bury Bob are at an advanced stage. Every election campaign is heralded as the most unrelentingly negative ever. It might be true this time. A...

MONTREAL - The Liberals would easily be beaten by Stephen Harper's Conservatives -- no matter which of the four main leadership contenders headed the party -- if an election was held now, a new poll has found. The poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid for CanWest News Service/Global News and released yesterday, also found that none of the four leading candidates has caught fire among Canadians as someone who would persuade them to vote Liberal. In fact, they all stand about the same chance of attracting voters back to the Liberal fold, but the result would nonetheless be another election loss....

OTTAWA — Liberals and Conservatives joined forces Wednesday to block an NDP motion that threatened to trigger a fall election. The motion, at the Commons environment committee, called for the resignation of Environment Minister Rona Ambrose. If it had passed at committee, it would have gone to a vote in the House of Commons in the fall. And because the Conservatives declared it a confidence motion, it threatened to bring down the government. Even though Conservative committee chair Bob Mills had declared the motion valid, Tory members challenged his ruling and overturned it with the support of the Liberals. “The...

Liberals still don't know why they lost: Party feels no need to discipline Joe Volpe for his questionable election practices The Edmonton Journal Sun 11 Jun 2006 Page: A18 Section: Opinion Byline: Lorne Gunter The federal Liberals still just do not get it. They cannot come to grips with what it is about their ethics and attitude that finally put off enough voters to dislodge them from power last January. Yes, I'm talking about Joe Volpe, the Toronto MP and leadership candidate who took $27,000 in campaign donations from five children; money he has since returned. But I am...

WINNIPEG - The Liberal leadership race lost its veneer of civility Saturday as the 11 contenders locked horns over Afghanistan and campaign financing and began sharpening their attacks on the perceived front-runner, Michael Ignatieff. Toronto MP Joe Volpe, struggling to recover from a kiddie campaign donation controversy, heralded the more aggressive tone at a news conference just hours before the first official all-candidates' debate. He announced that he will disclose all donations to his campaign in future as they are received and challenged his rivals to do the same or "bow out of the race." Volpe cast himself as the...

Volpe returns controversial donations View Larger Image Joe Volpe. Photograph by : Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward Article Tools OTTAWA -- Joe Volpe has moved to quell a controversy battering his Liberal leadership campaign, announcing Thursday he's returned $27,000 in donations from the children of current and former drug company executives. Volpe spokesman Corey Hobbs said contributions from five donors, all under age 18, have been returned. Each had given $5,400, the legal maximum. Hobbs would not name the donors who've been reimbursed. But they presumably include the 11-year-old twins and 14-year-old son of former Apotex Inc. vice-president Allen Shechtman. Volpe will...

OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF New auditor general's report on registry leaked Liberals are said to have tried to obscure huge costs OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is getting ready to mark its first 100 days in office next week with renewed assaults on the federal Liberals, especially their record on gun control and the sponsorship program. Harper confirmed yesterday that he is looking into "all the legal avenues" for retrieving government money allegedly funnelled to the federal Liberal party from the sponsorship and advertising program that was intended to build Canada's presence in Quebec. In the wake of Justice John...

...If there are serious criminal acts being covered up, then this election could prove to be unlike anything seen before in this country. Would a party guilty of high crimes against the people of Canada willingly go down to defeat running an honourable campaign? Would they restrict themselves to fighting a war of words and ideas when losing power is synonymous with having their crimes exposed, prosecuted and punished? I don’t think so. I expect that such a party would have no problem resorting to winning by any means possible, legal or not...

Here is a TV ad and a radio ad I made for the election. They won't be on TV or the radio, so feel free to send them around or host them on your own site if you have one.

The controversial belief system that counts movie stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta as devotees is winning support from a Liberal member of Parliament. Toronto-area MP Derek Lee appears in a recruiting video used by the Church of Scientology to attract new members in the United States. Some critics have denounced Scientology as a brainwashing cult that harasses its opponents and exploits the vulnerable for financial gain. But Mr. Lee says he supports some of the group's programs and is particularly impressed by its approach to rehabilitating drug addicts. "I'm way past the point of viewing them as just a...

Belinda's lesson By LINK BYFIELD -- Calgary Sun Pardon me while I gag. It was announced from Ottawa last week that our new Minister of Democratic Renewal will spend $1 million crossing the country to find out why fewer Canadians -- especially young people -- are voting in national elections. Why is there such growing apathy, disengagement and even cynicism about politics? She's determined to find out. The minister is Belinda Stronach, who was elected a year ago as a Conservative MP by the voters of New Market-Aurora in Ontario. On May 17, the Liberals bribed her with a cabinet...

The rest of the tapes Grewal took are now online at his website (click the source link) Not only do they make it clear that he did NOT approach them first, it also exposes that Belinda and Brison were both treated the same way For you Americans unaware what this is about, the Liberals up here have been trying to bribe opposition MP's to vote with them by offering them plumb jobs like a Senate seat or ambasadorship. Grewal got them on tape doing it.

OTTAWA (CP) - The House of Commons is heading back to work after a week off, with the Conservatives holding what they say is a "loaded gun" to the head of the governing Liberals and threatening another non-confidence vote as soon as Tuesday. Jay Hill, the Tory House leader, said Sunday his party hasn't settled yet on its final strategy. But he pointedly refused to rule out a new confidence test, despite the fact that Prime Minister Paul Martin survived one just 10 days ago. "As long as we have this loaded gun sitting there, they're going to have to...

What do the Liberals have to do to lose? The rule that there’s no such thing as bad publicity is supposed to apply to soap actresses and rock stars, but look at the polls: Grits 32.5 per cent, Tories 30.5 per cent. And, even when you find a national poll showing a Conservative lead, break it down regionally: Liberals 38 per cent, Tories 34 per cent. That’s Ontario, which is the critical battleground, as we psephologists say. “Yours to Discover,” as the licence plates say. And what one mainly discovers after the most cursory of glances is that Paul Martin...

The Libranos Strike Back II Further to events of this morning; Reading Coyne's column again, can anyone point me to a passage that accuses Tim Murphy of committing a crime? You know, among my first thoughts in reading this were that the National Post is a big place, with lawyers and whatnot, to vet columns before they run. Are we assuming too much in thinking this column is the target, or if it is, is this just a ham-fisted attempt by Murphy to intimidate the leading critic of Papa Paul - and more importantly, the powers that be who publish...

Canadian politics, always so dependably and historically dull, rose this week into the realm of high drama. It featured a government that refused to resign, though it had been defeated in a crucial parliamentary vote. It presented disclosures of base bribery in high places that sounded like they came straight out of "The Godfather." Finally, it produced the astonishing spectacle of a prime minister stalling for time on the possibility that two political opponents, stricken with cancer, will either die or collapse within the next seven days and thereby save his government. All told, however, this gave the opposition one...